Box of Rasam

Circa 2005

Disclaimer : All characters are authentic and any resemblance to any real person or avatar, is purely factual and intentional.

Prologue
We had an unfortunate incident a month back. One of my cousins Balaji who works in Bangalore met with an accident. His mother Latha, came down from Delhi for the surgery recuperation. The following incident happened during the hospital stay.


So here goes.

This was just a couple of days after the surgery and I decided on my own that some hot rasam will do good for Balaji's allopathy scarred appetite and palate.

So I get it done in a hurry and rush to the hospital before he gets hungry.

The boy is hungry and we decide to eat. but we know we have a problem at hand. The rasam box wont open. It just refuses to budge...

In my hurry I closed it when it was too hot.. and now it wont open..
Its rasam, so we cant bang it open too..  We try and try and try and then we give up..
We decide to go ahead with the other food items and look at the Rasam later..
It is shoved into the fridge with some grand plans of being used the next day..

Come tomorrow . Latha and me are a little apprehensive if it will open now.

The fresh rasam was in the fridge and hence refuses to budge. we contemplate, discuss, and come up with a multi pronged POA..

1. Try and try till our nails break or the box opens (which ever is earlier).
This approach fails so we went on to the next one.
 
2. Heat it up a little and see if it opens..
This also fails. Please note, we don't have our nails now. Now I bring my logic into play and tell Latha. "This is not something for women.. it needs raw masculine strength". So we proceed to the next course.

3. Look for a man who seemed capable of opening a rasam box. We walk along the corridor eyeing every man and judging if he is upto it. Needless to say, we didn't find a single male specimen of this species who answered our requirements.

We are dejected now and wondering what to do. By this time, the nurses decide to chip in and offer tools like scissors and what not to open up the box. Nothing works!!!!

Enter two burly policemen and a lawyer who have infact come to meet Balaji. Since this was an accident case there were some formalities to complete. The room is now busy. The policemen talking to Balaji and the lawyer talking to Latha. I pay attention to the conversation for a while (Rasam with capital R is top priority in my mind now)..
Then realize that the visitors are taken care of by Latha and Balaji, and me too doing the same would add no value and would infact signify a redundant resource (my i-flex experience instill in me a certain stinginess with resources). I decide to turn my attention to the box again, and suddenly poa # 4 takes shape.

I take it. and keep fiddling with it.. All the while looking at Latha..hoping to catch her attention..The moment arrives sooner than later… there is a lull in the
conversation…She looks at me for a fleeting instant. I grab her glance, look at her.. then the box. and then the policemen. She takes the cue and asks one of them to try opening it for us.

He obliges…and hey presto.. It opened!!!!!!!! We had rasam that day!!!!!

Epilogue:
The Rasam was good and tasty after all that effort. Balaji is fine now and doing great.